On July 14, news came from Maldives that as the first opponent of the Chinese team's top 40 in the second half of the match, the Maldives team was officially concentrated earlier this month, and then prepared to follow the actual situation. , Participate in some warm-up matches.
Affected by the epidemic, football activities in the Maldives were completely suspended from mid-March, and the ban was not lifted until early July.
After the former Croatian coach Segert’s coaching contract expired at the end of last year, the Maldives Football Association hired Dutchman Kopman and Rene Hiddink as the Maldives coach and first assistant respectively to lead the team to prepare for the South Asian Cup And the second half of the top 40 games.
However, affected by the epidemic, the Maldives Football Association did not bring two Dutch coaches to the Maldives until mid-June. The two immediately drew up a list of 32 candidates for training.
Since the Maldives as an island country currently only has one stadium that meets the official international competition standards, and its domestic football leagues are also played in this national stadium, the Maldives national team players will be interspersed with the national team and the club team. Training.
The Maldives team gathered on July 1. According to the requirements, the players were first concentrated on Male Island and then undergoing epidemic prevention tests. Only players with negative nucleic acid test results can participate in training normally.
In order to ensure that the football epidemic prevention work is foolproof, the Maldives Football Association requires players from other islands that are more severely affected by the epidemic to be quarantined and observed within the island before going to the national team for joint training. So at the beginning of the team's first training session on July 4, only 26 players came to the team, and the remaining 6 did not join the team until a week later.
According to the latest plan finalized by the Maldives Football Association, the new season of the league is scheduled to be unveiled in December this year, and the Maldives team's preparation time has become very sufficient.
As the defending champion, the Maldives team originally planned to participate in the South Asian Cup held in Bangladesh from September 19 to 30 to warm up for the second half of the top 40. But recently, the AFC has updated the calendar of all competitions, and in view of the outbreak of the epidemic, the South Asian Football Federation has decided to postpone the competition for one year. Therefore, it is difficult for the Maldives team to find an ideal warm-up opponent before playing against the Chinese team. However, the Maldives Football Association did not give up the effort to find other warm-up opponents for the team. They even made preparations for the team to go to a closed training camp somewhere.
by Beiqing Sports 肖赧
